Delhi Budget: Education stays the focus, gets max allocation
According to budget documents, the allocation is a slight drop from the ₹16,575 crore for the sector as per the budget estimates for the 2023-24.
The Delhi government on Monday announced a budget allocation of ₹16,396 crore for education — the highest among all sectors for 2024-25.
According to budget documents, the allocation is a slight drop from the ₹16,575 crore for the sector as per the budget estimates for the 2023-24 financial year, although the revised estimates for the fiscal dropped to ₹15,727 crore.
Tabling the annual budget estimates in the Delhi assembly, state finance minister Atishi said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government prioritises providing quality education to residents of the city.
“When the people of Delhi chose Arvind Kejriwal as their chief minister in 2015, he made education his Rajdharma. Over the past nine years, through his efforts, he has brought about significant changes in Delhi’s education system,” the minister said.
“The education revolution of the Kejriwal government has completely transformed Delhi government schools. It has changed everything. Today, a child from a poor family or an ordinary family can achieve anything by studying in Delhi government schools,” she added.
To be sure, the figures disclosed by the minister, vary from calculations determined via budget documents, since some small funds may also be earmarked under different heads.
Sharing the break-up of the outlay for the sector, Atishi said that ₹150 crore has been set aside for the construction of new schools and classrooms, with an additional ₹45 crore for the maintenance of existing classrooms. “Until 2014-15, government schools in Delhi had only 24,000 rooms available for the education of children. In just nine years, the government has built 22,711 new classrooms,” she said.
The government has also allocated ₹12 crore for the Delhi Model Virtual School, with a further ₹40 crore outlay for the entrepreneurship development programme Business Blasters — a scheme where students get seed money for creating a business model for their start-up ideas.
“Only entrepreneurship can alleviate unemployment in our country. In this direction, in 2019, we introduced an entrepreneurship mindset curriculum in our schools,” Atishi said.
Under the Schools of Specialised Excellence (SoSE) programme launched by the government in 2021-22, 38 school campuses have been established across Delhi in 56 domains, including STEM, humanities, performing and visual arts, Atishi said.
“In 2014, sending children to a government school was a compulsion for families due to financial constraints. This year, there have been 140,000 applications for 6,000 seats in the Schools of Specialised Excellence,” she said.
Atishi also highlighted that there are 47,914 regular teachers in Delhi government schools, as compared to 34,182 teachers before 2015, with the recruitment process for approximately 7,000 more teachers underway.
She said, “In 2023, for the first time, 324 principals were directly appointed from UPSC for Delhi government schools, setting a record. Additionally, 389 vice-principals were promoted to the position of principal, ensuring that almost all schools under the Delhi government now have regular principals who act as school leaders.”
Underlining the importance of teachers’ training, Atishi said, “Prioritising world-class teacher training, we are allocating ₹100 crore to SCERT (State Council of Educational Research and Training) for this purpose this year.”
The minister also announced a budget outlay of ₹118 crore for sports education, and ₹1,212 crore for higher and technical education.
However, the Bharatiya Janata Party said that the ground reality is different.
“The Arvind Kejriwal government claims to be giving one of the best budgets in the country, with the biggest share for education, but the ground reality is that the budgets have repeatedly failed Delhi residents… The Delhi government should stop misleading the people and concentrate on development of the city,” Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said.